Bailey pleased with effort at third World Para Surfing Champs

Due to logistics and administrative challenges, Jamaica sent only one competitor, Daniel Bailey, to the November 5-11 International Surfing Association (ISA) World Para Surfing Championship (WPSC) which was held in Huntington Beach, California.

Bailey entered the men’s Prone 2 event and finished third in his opening heat in round one after picking up 4.87 points behind eventual heat winner Ander Goenage of Spain who racked up top points of 10.93.

In his second-round performance, the Jamaican, despite a shoulder injury, led the heat before crashing out on his final wave. That performance saw him finishing third in heat five following his 7.33 score which wasn’t good enough to see him through to the quarterfinals.

For Bailey, his performance was nothing to be disappointed with, despite the injury challenges.

“I worked as hard as I could and I did my best. Unfortunately, this year I was injured as I had problems with my shoulders. I had to get treatment from the volunteers before each heat which affected me,” said Bailey.

The Jamaica College student said he had a good time in California as he was pleased to see some new faces from the 27 countries that took part in the competition.

“I met persons who got into surfing through physiotherapy workshops and they were encouraged to get into para surfing and that shows that the sport is growing, even right here in Jamaica as well,” said Bailey.

That sentiment was echoed by national coach Icah Wilmot that the nation is expected to send a bigger team to the next event as there are about five other para surfers currently in training and are rapidly getting to the level that can see them represent the country.

“We have some surfers that have been competing but we were only able to send Daniel as Tanto Campbell had some personal family issues and Marcus Banton was training up and ready to go but he received his visa approval late, so we are working on getting those things sorted our earlier so that we can have everything in order for the next championship.”

In the meantime, France claimed their first WPSC team gold medal to join with their team wins across all other current ISA competitions. The USA took the silver medal and Brazil, bronze. England won copper which is their first-ever ISA team medal.